Spicing Things Up

It hadn’t seemed important, but Christine wished she’d paid more attention to Jeff’s news

- Cathy Taylor

Christine peeped through the blinds and watched her husband strut along the street.

There was no doubt about it, Jeff had a spring in his step that hadn’t been there before he’d joined the archery club.

Barebow archery was Jeff’s latest craze. Since he’d had a health scare a few months ago, he’d been determined to live life to the full. This meant pursuing a variety of hobbies.

He’d tried his hand at painting, whittling, wild swimming and bird-watching, but abandoned all of them. All except archery.

As Christine padded to the kitchen to make tea, she tried to remember what Jeff had told her about the club members the previous night.

He’d mentioned someone called Rex, a lorry driver; George who talked about nothing but football and Alice who had been an extra in a film nobody had heard of.

At that point, Christine had tuned Jeff’s voice out so she could concentrate on the quiz programme she was watching. She’d vaguely heard him saying something more specific about one of the female archers – that the two of them went way back, but try as she might, Christine couldn’t remember him ever mentioning her before.

She knitted her brows and tried to dredge up what Jeff had said about her. But all she could think was that he’d mentioned something about her legs and ginger hair.